Glassy-Eyed
by Lady Kes
Summary: Robbie can't escape glass. Or Glass, for that matter. Sequel to Plastic, Metal, or Glass and Green Glass.


Robbie hated nudity. Well, no, that wasn't true. Under the right circumstances he could and did very much appreciate nudity. He didn't like nude victims, though. He always felt slightly embarrassed for them, though they were beyond caring, so perhaps the embarrassment was really for their loved ones.

"Well, he wasn't carrying any ID," Laura said, managing to be both entirely serious and dryly humorous as usual.

"I'd gathered that, thank you," Robbie replied equally dryly, and Laura's mouth twitched. "Can you tell me a bit more about how he died?"

"That I can do," she agreed, and gently rolled their victim over to display a few nasty stab wounds on his lower back, below the protection of the ribcage, and pointed to one in particular. "Stabbed. He would have bled out very quickly. This one's right around the kidney."

"Was he clothed or unclothed when he was stabbed?" Hathaway asked, looking intently at Laura rather than at the body, though Robbie knew that if asked, his sergeant could have provided a note-perfect description of the victim.

"That is an excellent question, Sergeant, and one I cannot answer ... yet," she said easily, rolling the victim back into his original position and glancing around it. "I don't think he was stabbed here, though, judging from the lack of disturbance, which would make it seem possible that he was stabbed with his clothes on and they were then removed to avoid any identifying elements. I'll know more after the postmortem."

That was their cue to leave her to her work, and Robbie and Hathaway carefully walked away from the body as they mulled over the scanty details they had so far.

"Once we have photos, fingerprints and DNA, we'll run them through the databases and see if Mr. Doe is there. And maybe SOCO will find something around here or we'll pick up something on CCTV," Robbie mused aloud, but he didn't hold out much hope given where the body was. Not exactly a high-traffic area, this tiny bit of park.

"'The smaller the detail, the more likely it is that the criminal has overlooked it'," Hathaway quoted easily, and Robbie shook his head. Worse than a fortune teller machine, he was.

* * *

As he'd suspected, SOCO found nothing useful in the area around Mr. Doe, there were no cameras leading to the park he'd been found in, and he wasn't on their databases. They'd put out a description and illustration, but he was likely to become another cold case if someone didn't report him missing or spot their request for help. He hoped they would. Cold cases stuck in Robbie's craw. Always had, probably always would.

"Stabbed somewhere, moved, stripped, and then dumped? This makes less sense than - than that Philip Glass stuff did," he grumbled, trying to choose a suitably frustrating comparison, but paused when Hathaway's phone rang.

"Sir, Dr. Hobson says she's got something 'very interesting' for us," Hathaway reported, mimicking Laura in a way that Robbie would never admit to hearing and certainly would never admit to smiling at.

"Well, come on then, Sergeant. It's not polite to keep a lady waiting, and it's even less polite to keep this one waiting," he said, getting up from his desk eagerly.

* * *

Laura was holding up an eyeball. It was actually rather creepy, all detached and in a glass specimen jar as it was.

"An eyeball?" he questioned, in a voice that asked why she'd brought them down to look at an eyeball.

"Not just an eyeball. A glass eyeball," she said smugly. "The left, as it happens. It's very well-made. It has veins, color variations in the iris and -" she turned the specimen jar to show them the back of the eyeball. "- a serial number. It's a medical device, after all."

"Can we trace it?" he asked, feeling like this might not be a cold case, though it was probably too early in this kind of case to be feeling so hopeful.

"You can indeed," Laura agreed, and put the eyeball down so she could hold out a folder. "I also have another bit of information. I found a blue wool fiber in one of the wounds. Very nice wool, I'd say, or at least it was before someone got blood all over it. The fiber characteristics are in this folder along with the serial number for the eye. Good luck, gentlemen."

"Thanks, Laura," Robbie said, and turned to go. Hathaway was close behind him, having taken the folder and tucked it under one long arm. Folders were a bagman's lot.

The serial number of the eye led them eventually to the victim and the victim's attacker. Apparently Mr. Daniel Miller had had a disagreement with his neighbor, mostly to do with the care of the land between their homes. Mr. Miller was prone to maintaining his section a bit too forcefully for the neighbor's tastes and the neighbor had finally snapped and stabbed Mr. Miller with hedge-trimmers while Mr. Miller was once again removing the flowers that were possibly too far over the property line. The fiber had been snagged from the neighbor's jumper. It seemed an awful waste and Lewis wondered yet again what made a man decide to kill another man, especially over something so trivial.

"Good result," said the Chief Super, standing beside him in the observation room. "A bit tricky, this one, but that's what you and Sergeant Hathaway tend to specialize in, isn't it?"

That didn't seem to require an answer, nor did he have one for the Chief Super even if it did, so he and Hathaway just murmured respectfully.

"Since you've finished this so quickly, you can accompany me to the Chief Constable's Police Federation fundraising dinner and concert tomorrow night, Robbie," she decreed, and it was definitely a decree. He'd tried more than once to get out of these things and he still wasn't sure why he was her first choice for an escort when Mr. Innocent wasn't available, but he never managed to avoid it in the end. Still, for the Police Federation he was a bit more willing to endure boring conversation, bad music, and terrible food.

"Ma'am," he answered in assent, and very definitely did not look at Hathaway. His sergeant found the whole substitute situation far more funny than Robbie would have wished.

"Excellent," she said, and turned to go. "Oh, and Robbie? It's Philip Glass."

* * *

Hathaway quotes E.O. Heinrich, appropriately enough


End file.
